Exam objectives: Several important new language features have been added, including enums, generics, static imports, and autoboxing/unboxing. API features added to the exam include java.lang.StringBuilder, java.util.Locale, java.util.Formater, java.util.Scanner. java.util.regex.Pattern, and java.util.regex.Matcher. Java IO features have been added, including File, BufferedReader, BufferedWriter, FileReader, FileWriter and PrintWriter. Concepts such as loose coupling and high cohesion have been added, as well as greater emphasis on encapsulation as it relates to JavaBean conventions. Bit manipulation (e.g., shifting) has been dropped.
Number of questions: 72 (increased from 61)
Time: 175 minutes (increased from 120 minutes)
Passing score: 59% (increased from 52%)
Level of difficulty: The concensus is that it is more difficult.
Format of questions: As before, you will always be told how many options to choose. No credit is given for partial answers.
SCJP 1.5 Mock Tests:
- John Meyer's SCJP 1.5 exam with GUI support for drag and drops.
- WhizLabs SCJP Preparation Kit with free sample exam
- EPractize Labs free demo: 25 questions
- ENTHUWARE's JQPlus V5 - 11 Tests - Most Advanced Java Based Simulator - Free Sample Exam
- eXamulator: 62 questions in total
- eJavaGuru.com's quiz on Enums
- JavaBlackBelt.com
- Marcus Green's 1.5 exam
- uCertify SCJP Practice Tests with free Practice Test and Study Notes, Article and How Tos.
- Cafe4Java's Collection of free SCJP 5.0 exam questions, arranged by (sub)objectives like collections, file I/O etc.
- SCJP 5.0 Mock questions
What are some potential trips/traps in the SCJP exam?
- Two top-level public classes cannot be in the same source file.
- main() cannot call an instance (non-static) method.
- Methods can have the same name as the constructor(s).
- Watch for thread initiation with classes that don't have a run() method.
- Local classes cannot access non-final variables.
- Case statements must have values within permissible range.
- Watch for Math class being an option for immutable classes.
- instanceOf is not the same as instanceof.
- Constructors can be private.
- Assignment statements can be mistaken for a comparison; e.g., if(a=true)...
- Watch for System.exit() in try-catch-finally blocks.
- Watch for uninitialized variable references with no path of proper initialization.
- Order of try-catch-finally blocks matters.
- main() can be declared final.
- -0.0 == 0.0 is true.
- A class without abstract methods can still be declared abstract.
- RandomAccessFile descends from Object and implements DataInput and DataOutput.
- Map does not implement Collection.
- Dictionary is a class, not an interface.
- Collection (singular) is an Interface, but Collections (plural) is a helper class.
- Class declarations can come in any order (e.g., derived first, base next, etc.).
- Forward references to variables gives a compiler error.
- Multi-dimensional arrays can be "sparse" -- i.e., if you imagine the array as a matrix, every row need not have the same number of columns.
- Arrays, whether local or class-level, are always initialized
Strings are initialized to null, not empty string. - An empty string is not the same as a null reference.
- A declaration cannot be labelled.
- continue must be in a loop (e.g., for, do, while). It cannot appear in case constructs.
- Primitive array types can never be assigned to each other, even though the primitives themselves can be assigned. For example, ArrayofLongPrimitives = ArrayofIntegerPrimitives gives compiler error even though longvar = intvar is perfectly valid.
- A constructor can throw any exception.
- Initializer blocks are executed in the order of declaration.
- Instance initializers are executed only if an object is constructed.
- All comparisons involving NaN and a non-NaN always result in false.
- Default type of a numeric literal with a decimal point is double.
- int and long operations / and % can throw an ArithmeticException, while float and double / and % never will (even in case of division by zero).
- == gives compiler error if the operands are cast-incompatible.
- You can never cast objects of sibling classes (sharing the same parent).
- equals() returns false if the object types are different. It does not raise a compiler error.
- No inner class can have a static member.
- File class has no methods to deal with the contents of the file.
- InputStream and OutputStream are abstract classes, while DataInput and DataOutput are interfaces.
Syllabus:
- Declarations and Access Control
- Object Orientation
- Assignments Operators
- Flow Control, Exceptions, and Assertions
- Strings, I/O, Formatting, and Parsing
- Generics and Collections
- Inner Classes
- Threads
- Development
